Gangsters, drug dealers and criminals engaged in money laundering appear to be helping to shore up the financial stability of the eurozone. That is thanks to the demand, European officials said, for high-denomination banknotes, mainly from 200 euros and 500 euros. The European Central Bank issues these bills for a large profit which is welcome at a time when their response to the financial crisis has cast doubt on their financial strength.
The high value notes are "the euro is becoming increasingly the favorite currency in the black economy and to all those who value the anonymity of their transactions and financial investments," wrote Willem Buiter, chief economist at Citigroup (Citigroup on the list of USA tax havens) in a recent report. The business of issuing euro banknotes, produced at a cost close to zero, is "extremely profitable" for the ECB, Buiter wrote. (And the U.S. has given billions?)
When euro banknotes and coins were brought into circulation in January 2002, the value of the existing 500 euro was 30,800 million euros, according to the ECB.
Today, there are approximately 285,000 million euro banknotes in circulation, yielding an annual growth rate of 32%. By value, 35% of euro banknotes in circulation are the largest denomination, the 500 euro note that few people get to see.

In 1998, Gary Gensler, then a member of the U.S. Treasury showed public concern about the competition to the $100 bill, the highest value in U.S. banknotes, posed by the largest euro and its possible use by criminals. He noted that $1 million in $100 bills weighs 22 pounds, in hypothetical $500 bills, would weigh just 4.4 pounds. (I do not see the problem to print 1,000 tickets, or $ 10,000)
Police have found large euro notes in cereal boxes, wheels and hidden compartments in trucks, said Soren Pedersen, a spokesman for Europol, the European police agency based in The Hague. "It goes without saying that this money is often linked to the illegal drug trade, which explains the similarity of the methods of concealment that are used."
An ECB spokesman declined to comment on who uses the euro notes. How Gangsters are Saving the Eurozone - English pravda.ru